Blog Post 14

Rita Pierson has been a professional educator since 1972. Watch her short TED talk video and tell what you learned from her. Also tell how you could apply these things in your classroom when you begin teaching. Why is it so important that we develop good relationships with our students?

Ms. Pierson tells us in her TED talk how important it is that we develop good relationships with our students because students cannot learn from someone who they do not like. Many teachers think that all they are expected to do is teach students and not actually develop these necessary relationships with them. Through these relationships the students begin to respect the teacher. At times without the motivation from the teacher students may never feel the real need for an education and they may not have the want to make something of themselves. Sometimes all students need is a "friend" to tell them they are worth something and they can do it. I would try to develop relationships with my students by making them feel important and included. I would try to make them feel incorporated in every way possible. These relationships are very important and can be lifelong because teachers are not only educators but sometimes, in a way, family.

PLN

I have continued to use my symbaloo for my PLN. I have really enjoyed using this to keep up with my C4K's and C4T's. This is a great and very well organized PLN.

C4K- November

For my first C4K this month I commented on Emma’s blog. Her class is reading a book called “Out of my Mind.” She was asked to post on her blog about three words she did not know from the story, give the definitions and tell how they were used in the story. I responded to Emma by saying :

Emma, My name is Rachel, I am a college student at The University of South Alabama! I really enjoyed this post. It is great that you are learning so much. A dictionary is a great resource to use when you don’t understand what words mean. It is great that you are learning to do these things. It will really come in handy later in life! Great work.

The next students post I commented on was Nathan from Pt England School. His post was a story translated into English. I responded to him by saying:

Hi Nathan, I am Rachel a student at the University of South Alabama in Mobile, AL, USA! This post is so neat! What language is it originally in? This saying is really great. It is a great thing to gather together to learn. Learning is so important and learning through technology, as your class is doing, makes it fun! I really enjoyed your blog post. Keep up the great work.

My last C4K was on Kaya’s blog post titled “Why we need to use the Crossing.” Kaya tells us in this post wy it is so important to be safe and always use the cross walks that are provided. I replied by saying:

Hi Kaya! My name is Rachel Hinton! I am a student at the University of South Alabama. I really enjoyed your video about using the cross walk and being safe. It is so important that you are learning these things so you won't great hurt! Great post. Keep up the good work blogging!

C4T #4

For my C4T I commented on Annie Palmers Blog Breaking Education Barriers. Ms. Palmer’s blogs were very inspirational and she had some very good advice.

For my first post I commented on her post titled “Have you Contemplated your Philosophy for Reading.” In this post Ms. Palmer talks about her relationship with reading. She tells us how things should be different than just reading the words on the page and comprehending it, it should be more of a relationship between the words on the page and the reader. I told her how excited I was to hear her opinion on reading. I told her how when I was a student in school I felt like I was forced to read and hopefully oneday I can give my students an outlook on reading like she has.
The second post I commented on was titled “Improving Teaching One Step at a Time.” Her she gives some really great advice especially for new teachers; take it one step at a time. She tells you not to take on too much, just take it slow and don’t stress. I told her how helpful this was especially for an upcoming teacher and how much I enjoyed this post.

Project 12- Part B

Blog Post #13

Shukla Bose: Teaching One Child at a Time- Rachel Hinton

In the video, Shukla Bose: Teaching One Child at a Time, Shukla Bose talks about the different schools she has created to enable children to learn. The schools allow children from slums and orphanages to learn things that they would never have the opportunity to without her help. This talk shows us how important it is to give every child an opportunity and not only the children but their parents as well. Bose makes a very good point when she talks about the parents and how many times it is thought that just because they are from the slums they do not care. This is far from true. She says that most of the time at conferences they have 80-100% attendance. This is pretty amazing. Maybe if our parents were as concerned about their children they would be more eager and receptive to what is being taught because they would be proud to show their parents what they are learning.
There are many encouraging things that can be taken from this video. In my opinion if children can go into a school that is taught in a language that is foreign to them, learn things and come out wanting to be neurosurgeons then anything is possible in a country where we have resources to use at our fingertips. We should take this as a lesson that if we push our students then anything is possible. Never expect less of your students because you never know what they are capable of.

Shane Koyczan: To This Day: for the Bullied and Beautiful- Elizabeth Johnson

In the video, To This Day: For the Bullied and the Beautiful, Shane Koyczan takes us through his struggling life journey. He was ridiculed and bullied as a child. He was told that his life ambitions would never come to pass. But from these struggles and pains, he became a writer. He wrote an incredible spoken-word poem called “To This Day”. In this spoken-word poem, he does a beautiful job talking about the bullied and hurting children and how they tend to go unnoticed in classrooms.
There is so much that we can learn from this video! As a future educator, I want to make it my mission to love and encourage all of my students. I hope to facilitate a classroom where all are equal and discipline those who bully others. I really enjoyed this video. It definitely opened my eyes to the issue of bullying and the lasting effects of it.

Kakenya Ntaiya: A Girl Who Demanded School- Calah Reynolds

In the video A Girl Who Demanded School, Kakenya Ntaiya shows us the troubles she went through to get to where she is now. When she finished middle school, she had the chance to go to high school, but she had to get her father's permission first. She made a deal with her dad, saying that she would go through the traditional Maasai rite of passage of female circumcision if he would let her go to high school. While she was in high school she met a young man from her village who had been to the University of Oregon, and she wanted to go to where he had been. She applied and was accepted into Randolph-Macon Woman’s College with a scholarship, but before she could go she had to get the support of her village so she could raise money to fly to the United States. After she finished college, she came back to her village and, with the help of her village elders, built a school for young girls in her community.
We can learn a lot from Kakenya Ntaiya. At her school in her village, she is making a difference in so many young girls lives. She is teaching them that they don’t have to go through the traditional Maasai rite of passage of female circumcision, they don’t have to get married when they are 12 years old and they can all create and achieve their own dreams. She is opening up so many doors for these girls that they wouldn’t have had otherwise. From Kakenya we can learn that you have the opportunity to make something of yourself and that you can achieve a lot in your lifetime if you put your mind to it and do it.

Blog Post #12

Changing Education Paradigms- Rachel Hinton

In Ken Robinson's video he begins by talking about the reasons the school have began to change. First of all schools want to teach children how to be apart of the changing economy and secondly they want them to have a sense of cultural identity and globalization. Robinson points out that this is being done in the wrong ways.
Schools are trying to teach students with old methods of teaching, ways that are non effective and boring. He states that we are alienating students and they have no desire to want to be in school. They are now saying what is the point because they see so many people, even with college degrees, not succeeding why would they want to sit through something so boring if it will not further then in the future? This current type of education is not for this age. They need something new and exciting, something to engage their interested.
We found it very interesting the point Mr. Robinson makes about ADHD. We had never really realized how many people had been diagnosed with this. If you really think about his argument against it it makes so much sense. In today's world students are thought to be unruly and uncooperative if they don't want to sit still and listen to a lecture for an hour and thirty minutes. If we gave them something more interesting it is a good possibility they would not be this way. This is something that should be considered by teachers and parents alike.
Divergent thinking is something Robinson points out that we find very important. Divergent thinking is not the same as creativity. This is when you take a question and are able to interpret it and answer it in many different ways. If we teach children how to not only be creative but also become divergent thinkers their though process would develop so much more than we could even imagine. We are killing this type of thinking by educating the students. It's like when they are " educated" they forget how to learn on their own.
Mr. Robinson tells us if we can begin to think differently about human capacity, understand that collaboration is key and understand the habits and habitats of instruction that is when we will have effective teaching.

How Schools Kills Creativity- Calah Reynolds
I watched Sir Ken Robinson’s How Schools Kill Creativity, and I thought it was very interesting! I love his humorous attitude. He is entertaining to watch and I think we can all learn a lot from him. Robinson makes a very good point when he says, “We don’t grow into creativity, we grow out of it.” If you think about it, that is true. When you look at a child they have such creativity and wonder, but as you watch them grow into adults most of them lose that spark. Schools nowadays are so focused on the math and sciences rather than the arts and music, and many people look down on the idea of someone wanting to grow up to be an artist or a singer. That is one thing that is wrong with this world. We should be embracing the idea of our children wanting to use their creativity and think outside of the box. We need to educate our children on “their whole being so they can face this future”, not just one side of the brain. Children grow up learning that it isn’t okay to be wrong, but as Robinson said it, “If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original.” He’s right, you shouldn’t live your life trying to please others. You should live your life by taking chances.

“We might not see the future, but they will. Our Job is to help them make something of it.”

How to Escape Educations Death Valley- Elizabeth Johnson

There are many things that we can learn from Ken Robinson’s video How to Escape Education’s Death Valley. He begins by saying that he was told that Americans did not get irony. However, he discovered that Americans do understand irony when he heard about No Child Left Behind, because children do, in fact, get “left behind”. According to Ken Robinson, scary numbers of students drop out of school in America. It’s not that money isn’t spent on education in America, it is that the money is going in the wrong directions. He describes three principles to allow children’s minds to flourish. First, human beings are naturally different and diverse. In NCLB, diversity is ignored and conformity is encouraged. I learned from Mr. Robinson that children must learn from a wide and broad curriculum instead of a narrow-based spectrum. The second principle that is crucial for children to flourish according to Mr. Robinson is curiosity. Children are natural learners. They just need to interested and spark their curiosity. He says that great teachers not only pass on information to students, but they also mentor, stimulate, provoke, and engage. I want to be this kind of teacher! I want to be more than just a “passer of knowledge”. I want to facilitate learning in my classroom. The third principle is that human life is inherently creative. We create our lives as we go through them. He goes on to talk about standardized testing and the educational school system in Finland. So, what are some things I learned through this video? I learned the importance of valuing students through teaching. It’s so important to individualize, be creative, and spark curiosity when teaching. No two children are the same, and the way they learn is different. Also, I need the support of others while teaching. It’s so important to continue to learn and be trained throughout my career. I really enjoyed this video! I learned so many things from Mr. Ken Robinson.

Project #15- Project Based Learning Plan 3

What's the disease? PBLearning Plan 3

C4T- Tom Schimmer

The first post Mr.Schimmer talks about how teachers use homework as a means of practice, but if it really considered practice then why do we grade them on it? He makes a very good point. This was a very informative post to read. He believes that homework should be for practice and used formatively rather than being used as part of a summative reporting process. I have to agree. This was my reply to his post,

Mr. Schimmer, I am Rachel Hinton an EDM 310 student at the University of South Alabama majoring in Elementary Education. This semester in EDM we have learned so much about 21st century learning and ow helpful if can be in making our students excited about learning. Before this class I would have probably went into teaching thinking the same way most teachers do about homework, that the students need to do it to learn or that it has to be required but there are so many different things that can be used besides homework, especially if it is going to be graded. I find this blog post very interesting. I agree with you 100% that homework should be only for practice and formative assessment. If the students are only worried about gettting it finished to earn the points many times they will not really be learning anything anyway. Thank you for a great post can’t wait to read more!

The second post I read was about students being curious. He says that we should ask ourselves as we are planning our lessons if this will strike the curiosity of our students or if it will just bore them. He tells us to start with questions and ask them what they are curious about before we even begin class. He encourages teachers to foster the kids curiosity and soon it will become easier and easier. My reply to this post was:

Hi, I am Rachel Hinton. I commented on one of your more recent post for my EDM 310 class. I really enjoyed this post. It is very helpful especially for future teachers like me. This is something that I will keep in mind when I begin teaching in the future. Hopefully if I were to start out with things like this it will be easy to maintain throughout my years of teaching. I have really enjoyed your blog. Thank you for all your great post and I can’t wait to read future post. Rachel

C4K- October

C4K #4- Lauren: The American Dream Lauren’s post on the American dream was very interesting post. She talked about how the true American Dream is to become leaders. I replied to her by saying,

Hi Lauren, I see you have been getting many comments from our EDM 310 class this past week! My name is Rachel Hinton, and I am so glad that I was chosen to comment on your blog along with a few others. I really enjoyed reading your post! I am so glad to see someone so interested and passionate about something. “The dream to be a leader, a champion, a protector of natural rights.” This gives me a new look on what we as Americans see as the “American Dream.” Your post really gave me a lot to think about and had me questioning my thoughts about the American Dream and the real genius of our founding fathers. I am so thankful that I have been given the opportunity to become and be a leader. Thank you for your outstanding post! Keep up the blogging. I can’t wait to read more! Rachel Hinton- http://hintonracheledm310.blogspot.com/

C4K #5- Briana: Melody and Penny Briana’s class was reading a book called Out of my Mind. In her post she had to answer two questions: • How do you think Melody will react to having a new sibling in the house? I think Melody wa nervous about having a sibling in her family. • What themes or big ideas do you think that Sharon Draper is trying to get us to think about as we read these chapters?I think that he is trying to tell us that we are suppose get along with other people even if there like Melody because is a really nice girl and I think in the book I can hear her voice when Ms. Eppele is reading the book. I replied:

Hi Briana! My name is Rachel. I am a student at the University of South Alabama in Mobile, AL, USA. Although I have never read the book that you are reading it sounds really interesting. Service dogs are really neat and good to have especially for those who or blind or for older people who are alone. Did you know that some dogs can even be trained to smell cancer in humans before it can even be detected by doctors or test? Although I’m not sure of Melody’s situation I am sure I would be very nervous for a new sibling to be coming into my house! It would be so strange to get use to such a change like that when things have been the same for so long. Out of my Mind sounds like a great book especially if it teaches us to get along with others! I will have to try to read it soon. I really enjoyed reading your blog! Thanks so much for your great post! Keep up the good work!

Rachel
C4K #6- Matt: Trip to Yamnuska Matt talked about his trip to a park called Yamnuska where he learned about fungi, moss, and lichen. He included pictures as well. This was my reply,

Hi Matt, I’m Rachel Hinton an EDM 310 student at the University of South Alabama in Mobile, Al. I really enjoyed your blog post! It is so great that you are learning about this neat stuff! I really liked your fun fact about the caribou! That was something that I never knew! This sounds like a really cool place to go! Your pictures are great! Keep up the good work blogging! Rachel

C4K #7- Jun: Rebuilding Christchurch In his post Jun talks about his three wishes for Christchurch community: rebuilding the damaged buildings, having things for tourists to do, amazing amusement parks and trams to travel around Christchurch. I told Jun:

Jun, I am Rachel a college student in Mobile, AL, USA. Your thoughts and ideas for you town are great! I think it is great that you are so concerned about your town. You have some really good ideas. I love the idea of amusement parks probably because I love them so much myself! Bike trains sound like so much fun! I wish we could put something like that on campus! I really enjoyed reading your post! Keep up the good work blogging. Rachel

Blog Post #11

Ms. Cassidy is a first grade teacher who is implementing 21st century learning in her classroom by allowing her students to blog and explore certain areas of the internet. Through blogging her students are learning how to write while learning how to use technology. Her students not only write on their blog but they also post pictures and videos. The students also use the homepage website to explore the internet and different websites and games.
Ms. Cassidy’s number one concern is the student’s safety on the internet. She first teaches the students not to ever use their last name and also to never post pictures of themselves. She also makes sure it is okay for the students to use the blog by getting permission from the parents. I think that this is very important especially with young children because if the parents are not behind you 100% then most likely you will encounter some type of trouble.
I really enjoyed how Ms. Cassidy allowed their students to video themselves and place them on widgets to interact with students from all over the world. I can only imagine how exciting this must have been for the students to have people all over the world adding videos to something they started. I would really like to use this in my classroom one day to show students that their work is important and that people care about what they are doing.
I can see where all of these different things would come in handy in my future classroom. These are very fun and interesting ways to incorporate learning into technology. It also really helped me to see that no matter what age your students are they are capable of using technology.

Project #10

Project #12- Part A